


Not What I Intended

by singedsun



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Death and Resurrection, F/F, Just Married, Just Married Exchange, how not to tell someone you love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 14:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20009485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singedsun/pseuds/singedsun
Summary: "You seemed believed the best in everyone. Thinking everyone was as kind as you are.""I'm not always kind.""Oh, don't I know it, darling." Vex chuckles. "The difference is that you want to be. You seek out kindness in yourself and in others." Vex says. "That's lovely about you; I know that, now."





	Not What I Intended

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kimaracretak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/gifts).



"Vex?" Keyleth turns at the door, looking back into Vex's room.

"Hmm?" Vex looks up as her fingers still work out the laces of her bracers, loosening it enough to slide it off her forearm.

"Could I ask you something?"

"Of course, darling." She waves Keyleth inside and pats the empty space beside her on the bed. "Come. Sit."

Keyleth does, briefly scanning the room as she crosses through. She smiles at the bouquet of flowers on the side table, done in a variety of blue and white flowers. There are bits of leather and half carved bits of wood on the desk. And while Trinket is nowhere in sight, there are ribbons hanging from one wall which look ragged and familiar, like one of Vax'ildan's attempts at fancying up the sweet bear.

Vex is sliding off her other bracer and curling the fingers of both hands, arms stretched.

"This isn't a bad time, is it? I can come back." Keyleth says.

"No, no. I was just thinking that we needed to talk. So, tell me your question."

"Well, I wanted to know… I was wondering…" She sighs. "I wasn't sure -- what did you mean, earlier? You said, you were 'glad to be wrong' about me?"

"I'm sorry you heard that." Lowering her gaze, Vex frowns. "I'm sorry I said it, really. I didn't mean it-- I said it wrong, I think. You have proven a wonderful leader, Keyleth. I think you are so brave and clever and a force of nature to be reckoned with. I hope you know that."

Keyleth's cheeks flush, freckles fading into the redness for a moment as she says, "Thank you." She moves her head lower to find Vex's downcast gaze. "That's very kind, but--"

"Not exactly the answer to your question. I know, dear. It's just, I've changed too, you know. Maybe not the same way you have but I believe those things about you now because I've seen you grow into them. I just didn't know that this is what we'd be someday, you know?"

"What? Dragon Slayers? Adventurers? Vox Machina?"

Vex closes her eyes.

"Friends, Keyleth. Friends."

"You didn't think we'd be friends?"

Vex shrugs and frowns slightly. She turns and puts her hands on Keyleth's knees. Her head tilts, a dark curl free sliding past her ear.

With a sigh she says, "I judged you harshly in the beginning." She looks up at Keyleth, blue eyes pinning Keyleth in place, keeping her from interrupting. "It wasn't just you, I suppose, but everyone. I think we suffered for it though. I mean, I did. You and I, we could've been friends sooner. If I'd known how to make them properly, that is."

Keyleth shakes her head. "It didn't feel like that. Like you were judging us… me. You were just, protective."

"I think you were too kind to realize, darling." Vex lifts a hand to brush her thumb over Keyleth's chin, tilting her head up. "I thought you too kind, and too naïve back then. You seemed believed the best in everyone. Thinking everyone was as kind as you are."

"I'm not always kind." Keyleth's green eyes go hard a moment, nostrils in her slim nose flaring. Vex can almost hear the echoes of her rage as Keyleth yelled at Raishan.

"Oh, don't I know it, darling." Vex chuckles. "The difference is that you want to be. You seek out kindness in yourself and in others." Vex says. "That's lovely about you; I know that, now."

Vex's hand holds Keyleth's chin, cupping it gently. Her blue eyes travel over the other woman's suntanned features and the freckles spotting her cheeks. Keyleth wants to look hard, fierce and otherworldly. Vex has seen her that way, seen the fire in this beautiful druid. But it's not there now. Vex knows her face too well, seeing through the façade of her challenge.

"Now? You didn't like me at first because I was kind?"

Vex sighs and lets go of Keyleth's chin, moving her hand to tug on a thick strand of Keyleth's red waves. Her hand brushes Keyleth's bare shoulder. "No. It's because I wasn't. I didn't have room for anyone else." She scoffs at her own words. "I didn't _want_ to have room for anyone else. Vax and I had been on our own for so long and I wasn't sure how to let that… change. I was afraid for it to. He wasn't just my brother, you know. Back then it felt like-- like he was my whole world."

Keyleth reaches for her, holding Vex's hand to her shoulder. She draws her hand closed around Vex's slender, calloused fingers. She smiles warmly, drawing Vex's hand down to her chest over her heart, squeezing their hands together tight.

"I can understand that," she says. "He's special, your brother. He loves you so much. But, I'm glad you changed your mind."

Vex chuckles and dips her head, pressing her hand harder against Keyleth's chest. "It was a struggle, darling." She teases out the words as she speaks, smiling into them.

"Was it?"

Vex is silent for a moment, seeing the arrow in her mind as it struck Keyleth in the chest. Her arrow, slicing through the sky straight from Fenthras to strike this wonderful woman. Just the memory of it makes her hold her breath, the horror of what she'd done sinking in. It's overwhelming, the devastation that still threatens to sink into her bones at the thought of it.

"Vex?"

"It was torture," Vex sighs. She closes her eyes to threatening tears, holding them back for the moment.

"What was?"

"Have you seen yourself, Keyleth?" Her free hand toys with the ends of Keyleth's hair, the shorter ends near her face giving her reason to brush the back of her hand against Keyleth's cheek. "I wanted it to be easier to go on judging you, to dislike you, to be able leave without a second thought back towards you, any of you. Yet everyone seemed so determined to work together. Everyone stayed because of you, I think. Because you wanted to do good. I didn't want to admit it there might have been more to it, though I think my brother saw the truth of it."

"More?"

"Oh yes," Vex's chuckle carries between them. Keyleth laughs too, if more at the sparkle in Vex's eyes than feeling the levity of the moment. Her need to know more is too focused, trying to pin down exactly what's supposed to happen now.

Keyleth takes a breath, ready to ask Vex to explain. Before she can ask more, Vex slides her hand over her shoulder and down her back. "You cut quite the figure, Keyleth."

She can feel the weight of Vex's gaze as strongly as she feels the warmth of Vex's hand on her lower back. The words quick to her tongue get swallowed away; even she needs no further explanation into what Vex means, exactly, when that gaze drops to her lips and Vex is leaning in to close the distance between them.

Their lips touch gently, a breath and a smile between them.

"I've wanted to kiss you for a long time, Keyleth." Vex's voice is low and soft, huskier with the sound of desire laced in her words. "Is that alright?"

Keyleth inhales, chest heaving under their clasped hands. "Yes."

Vex kisses her again deeply, a sigh pressing them together.

When she pulls away, Vex licks her lips. "I hadn't intended it to happen like this," she says.

"The kiss? This conversation?"

Vex laughs and leans her forehead to Keyleth's, shaking her head. "The arrow, the tree, getting married. But yes, those things too."

"I don't mind."

"That I had to kill you first in order to admit that I love you?" Vex's laugh is breathless and she brings her hands around to grab Keyleth's again. "I'm sorry about that. I hope you know that."

"I meant the kiss… I mean, I do. Know that, that is. … You love me?"

"You're the living proof of it, darling. Quite literally, apparently." Vex squeezes her hands. 

"Oh." Keyleth's smile is soft and thoughtful. She squeezes her fingers in response. "Did you know that would happen? The tree? The--" She tries to gesture and lifts her shoulders and an elbow in order to keep from extracting her hands from Vex's. "Marriage? I guess?"

Vex shakes her head. "I never would've done it this way if I'd known. I'd been trying to figure out a way to tell you on my own."  
  
"Oh?"

"It's why my brother was giving me a hard time about what I'd said." She blushes. "I didn't have anything… just a lot of explanation about how much of an asshole I'd once been. Then this happened. And you'd be stuck with me, even if you didn't want to be. I hope you do. Want to be, that is."

Keyleth nods and is quiet for a moment, looking thoughtfully down at their hands. Finally she says, "I do. And I was so worried... I thought it was you that would feel stuck with me, that you'd felt differently. Then this is the way it had to be."

"No, darling. No. I should've--"

"I love you, too."

Vex bites back the rest of her words, excuses and explanations and apologies dying on her tongue and Keyleth kisses her, warm and eager. Their fingers find the twin bands of dark wood on each of their hands, grooves in the wood reminiscent of the arrow that had been the birth of this marriage between them. When their hands do fall away from each other amid their kiss, it's in the favor an embrace that carries them down to length of Vex's bed.


End file.
